Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

Help us grow by giving to the Plant Database Fund or by becoming a member

Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Search Smarty Plants

See a list of all Smarty Plants questions

Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.

rate this answer

1 rating

Friday - December 19, 2014

From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Lists, Water Gardens
Title: Specifying sizes of plants for pond edge plantings in Austin area
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

I am working on a list of pond edge plantings for the Austin area that will be in the fluctuation zone and I have my list of my plants but I need to know how to spec the sizes and to make sure my list of plants are available. There will a large amount of material, should I specify bare root, plug, 4" pot, flats or 1/2 gallon containers and will this plant material be easily available in the Austin area? Some of the plants are Lobelia cardinalis, crinum americanum, tripsacum dactyloides. I don't want to specify sizes or types of plants that will not be readily available.

ANSWER:

We can provide you with information about nurseries that carry native plants in the Austin area. On the National Suppliers Directory page, first select List All Suppliers. When the list of suppliers appears, then put "Austin Texas" in the "Enter Search Location (City, State, Zip)" slot and click "go". This will give you a list of nurseries in and near Austin. Most of them have webpages and on a few of their webpages you can find a list of plants that they offer. All of them have telephone numbers, however, and these telephone numbers are what you should use to discover the size and availability of the plants on your list. That's exactly the way we at the Wildflower Center would learn what's available.

Native Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

rate this answer

Friday - December 19, 2014

QUESTION:

ANSWER:

More Water Gardens Questions